General introduction to marbles

The word Marble comes from Greek word Mamaros which means shining stone Marble is a non-foliated, Granular Metamorphic Rock that is formed by the Metamorphism of Limestone and Dolostone. Marble is calcium Carbonate (caCO3). The term marble is also applied to serpentine rocks that can be polished to high shine. The Marble is a carbonate rock which means it has (CO3) in chemistry. Marble, Onyx and Granite belong to the category of building stones widely known as Dimension Stone, These are natural stones which can be shaped in form of blocks, slabs, tiles, etc and are mostly used for monumental and decorative purposes since antiquity, various civilizations have used dimension stone in many ancient buildings and monuments that have survived to the present day. Although numerous varieties of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks are used as dimension stone, the principal rock types used are granite, limestone, marble, sandstone and slate. Major deposits of high quality Dimension Stone available in a wide range of colors, shades and patterns could not be exploited so far due to lack of modern quarrying and manufacturing facilities. This hindered the development of marble and granite sectors.

To investigate the current approach to the afghan marbles productivity:

Typically, production of marbles or another dimension stone such as granted, limestone or sandstone include several step including quarrying mining: squaring and chamfering (preparing the blocks): profiling (cutting into wide slabs) multi-cutting (sizing); and polishing/finishing Rough stone blocks split or cut from quarry face are transported to processing plants that are typically located at least for preliminary sizing. Further dressing, which includes final sizing and finishing operation, such as decorating, edging, and polishing, also may be done at the quarry site but usually these operations take place at the marble factories /processing plants far from the quarrying sites. The details of this process is explained in the exhibit number one entitled standard versus afghan domestic practice in marbles quarrying and processing. The world production of dimension stone comprising of marble, granite slate, limestone and sandstone is about 70 million tons in marbles, productions dominated by five countries worldwide, Italy, turkey, Spain, India, and china. These countries control over half of the market. Worldwide the marbles industry has been growing strongly since 1990s, and atroughly8.7%per year since 1999. The industry is expected to continue to grow over 8% per year into 2025. Currently, 55% of the marble quarried destined for exports. Estimates are that by 2025 ,60% of all quarried will be exported and the total investment in marbles industry from 2003 up to jan, Feb, and march 2013 up to 5,552,495,221$ and in marbles domestic investment is 17,711,000 .world marble imports are estimated at $2,5 billion which research was performed by AISA and as regarding the investigation of AISA regional dominant of marble industry in Afghanistan marbled market is primarily Pakistan followed by India and Iran , through India does very little export. The largest share of value is found in quarrying blocks and in cutting slabs, the most difficult and capital and in cutting slabs, the most difficult and capital intensive links in the value chine .however ,countries with the ability to manufacture cheaply especially china are beginning to enter the finishing goods market and rich economy is increasingly importing finished gods .currently ,the largest importers of slabs and finished goods are the US ,and the middle east, USA and Saudi Arabia and the OTF group.